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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28216830">A Taste of Red</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheChainLink/pseuds/TheChainLink'>TheChainLink</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But terror takes the sound before you make it, Isolation, Self-Cannibalism, Self-Harm, Starvation, Werewolf, You try to scream, cabin in the woods</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:29:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,739</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28216830</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheChainLink/pseuds/TheChainLink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Desperate times call for desperate measures.</p><p>It wasn't until now that John began to realise just how desperate things could be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Taste of Red</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this for a competition a while back (sadly it didn't win) and thought you might like to see it.</p><p>Be warned, it is one of my... weirder ideas.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The cabin was John’s entire world.</p><p>The familiar walls were weathered with age, the floor cushioned with a blood-red carpet, and the typewriter on the desk his only occupation during the long hours of solitude. The cabin was John’s home, his haven, his universe.</p><p>And his only protection from the things outside.</p><p>He was working at the typewriter, writing a story about a grave robber trapped in a network of catacombs, when he heard it:</p><p>A howl, shrill and piercing against the unrelenting silence.</p><p>He didn’t scream, gasp, or even start backwards. Instead he got up, made his way over to the window, propped open the shutter flaps between his thumb and forefinger and peered outside, making no sound save for his breathing and muffled footsteps against the carpet. <em>Can’t let it hear, </em>he thought. <em>Can’t let it know. </em>All the while his front teeth were clenched over his bottom lip in a desperate attempt to stop himself from crying out.</p><p>The thing was barely more than a shadow in the mist, a blurry outline at best, but it was <em>there.</em> He thought that its shape resembled that of a wolf’s, but he quickly banished the image from his mind. Wolves were vicious, wolves travelled in <em>packs. </em>And wolves would feed on anything – or <em>anyone </em>– that they could get their filthy paws on.</p><p>As John watched on, the wolf-thing threw back what he assumed was its head, let out another piercing howl, then faded into the white void. He released the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding, and let the shutters fall back into place. He felt something warm trickling down his face. He wiped at it, and his hand came away red; he had bitten down on his lip so hard that it was bleeding.</p><p>His eyes widened. His tongue, dry and motionless mere moments before, writhed into life and lapped at the wound, the hot, red liquid re-awakening his senses.</p><p>The red was food.</p><p>The red was <em>life.</em></p><p>But soon the cut was sealed, and the red was gone.</p><p>His stomach still cried out, wanting – no, <em>needing </em>– more than just his own foul blood. His arms were covered with the ghosts of similar wounds – some fresh, some barely visible – from when the cries from his stomach had become too much to resist. The biggest of the scars, the one that started it all, was on his neck, and still refused to heal.</p><p>John threw open a drawer and rooted through its contents, tossing aside papers, empty food wrappers and notebooks until he found what he was looking for: a knife, its blade glimmering in the dim light. Suddenly the knife was in his hand, trembling in his grip. He forced his grip to steady, then forced the blade closer, but still it stopped just inches short of his flesh.</p><p><em>Come on. </em>He thought. <em>You’ve read about this, you’ve researched this, hell, you’ve </em>written <em>about it, for fuck’s sake! So DO IT!</em>  </p><p>Inch by painful inch, John moved it closer, until the cold tip of the blade pressed into his forearm. He forced the blade in further and further, peeling skin and drawing blood until a piece came free. He braced himself, shut his eyes, and shoved the scrap of flesh into his mouth. His face automatically twisted into a grimace at the alien taste and he gagged on his own flesh. Fighting the urge to vomit, he swallowed, and the scrap slithered down his throat. He retched again and again, but his stomach, roused by its first real food in days, growled, like a monster feeding on him from inside.</p><p>Part of him, a voice in his head (one of many that had emerged in his time there), was begging him to stop here, to cut anything, anywhere. Hell, maybe even his <em>wrists</em>. But the voice of reason was drowned out by another.</p><p>The one that knew that the red would no longer suffice.</p><p>The one that wanted <em>more.</em></p><p>The one that wanted <em>flesh, </em>that dripping red meat, fresh from the bone, it wanted ribs, it wanted steak, legs and breast, and <em>fat dripping chunks of hot, wet-</em></p><p><em>‘RED!’ </em>John cried in a strangled croak, and plunged the blade into the flesh of his wrist, dragging it back and forth until it reached the bone, where it will go no further. Blind with hunger, he bit into the bone, and after three cracked teeth and several strikes with the butt of the knife his hand comes free, still twitching. He cried aloud with a mixture of triumph and pain, and sank his teeth into the flesh.</p><p><em>Notthebonenotthebone, bones’llchokeya, </em>said the voice, somehow the only part of him still clinging on to reason. And he did so, tearing the meat from the bone as though he were eating a rib. Tears streamed down his face as he sucked the fingers clean one by one, spitting out the nails as though they were cherry stones. He cried out of pain, out of sheer hopelessness, and out of shame; shame that he had resorted to <em>this, </em>the kind of thing that would only be <em>heard </em>about in the news. Or maybe some sick pig would put it in a horror movie to make himself stand out and put a few more backsides in his stupid seats.</p><p>John wept until his eyes were dry, and as red as the blood coursing through them.</p><p>But in spite of everything, the voice was not satisfied.</p><p>He tossed the remains of his hand aside and it hit the wall with a wet <em>smack</em>, leaving a bloody imprint on the wood. He didn’t notice; he was lapping at the gushing stump, probing the bone with his tongue, by now blind to the pain lashing from his arm. Slowly but surely, the darkness began to cloud his vision, threatening to swallow him whole, and he dived for it.</p><p><em>You might not come back up, </em>said the voice.</p><p><em>Fine by me, </em>he thought.</p><p>But then something slammed against the wall, and everything was thrown back into focus. There was a low growl from outside, followed by another slam. His mind jerked back to the wolf-thing, howling in the mist.</p><p>Wolves were vicious.</p><p>Wolves travelled in <em>packs.</em></p><p>Wolves would feed.</p><p>On anything.</p><p>Or any<em>one.</em></p><p>That they could get their stinking paws on.</p><p>For five agonising seconds, there was silence.</p><p>Then a huge white shape crashed through the wall, and John screamed.</p><p>The creature did indeed resemble a wolf, with a strong young body covered in bleached-white fur and supported by four muscular legs. A long tail protruded from its back, ending in a mace-like stump covered in quills that swung lazily from side to side.</p><p>The abomination turned to face him, and his blood ran cold as its head split open, and six flaps of flesh lined with razor-sharp teeth were splayed out around a ghastly disfigured skull caked in blood. From the sockets, two pitch-black eyes gazed back at him in an unblinking stare. A slimy black organ that he could only assume was its tongue trailed across its lips at the sight of its prey.</p><p>Clutching the gushing stump and gritting his teeth against the pain, he drew back against the wall, all the while his eyes darting around, searching for something – for <em>anything </em>– to use against it, but finding nothing. Instead his eye turned to the hole in the wall. The distance was less than six feet, but even that was too great a risk.</p><p>The creature began to advance, moving towards him step by step, its club of a tail swinging from side to side. It could’ve pounced on him in a heartbeat, but then again, why waste the energy? It had him right where it wanted him.</p><p>John’s knees buckled for the briefest of moments, and for a split-second the darkness clouded the edges of his vision. His head swayed, and he started backwards at the sight of an alarmingly large pool of blood at his feet and spattered on his shoes. Part of him, a part he was unable or unwilling to listen to, had already realised from that momentary glance that there was at least a quarter of his own blood, three-out-of-twelve pints, congealing at his feet. But something, that oh-so-precious something inside of him, was holding out, keeping him sane, but most importantly it was keeping him <em>conscious</em>.</p><p>And then, that precious something gave him an idea.</p><p>He worked his right shoe free with his left and snatched it up, then held it to the gushing stump, soaking it in blood. When it was sufficiently coated, he threw it across the room. He never saw the wolf-thing grab it in mid-air like a dog’s chew-toy; in that same moment he had lunged for the hole in the wall, slipping through the crude opening to the outside. His ploy had brought him mere seconds, but those seconds were all he needed.</p><p>His legs worked like pistons, propelling him across the barren wasteland, spurred on by searing pain and the thought of the wolf-thing hot on his heels. He allowed himself no more than quick glances at his surroundings – ashy grey soil, jet-black trees – as he worked on his wrist, wrapping it in his shirt to staunch the flow, if only a little.</p><p>Suddenly something wrapped around his ankle and pulled, knocking John to the ground. He forced himself to look back, and saw the wolf-thing standing over him. All hopes of escape gone, he closed his eyes and accepted his fate.</p><p>And then he felt it.</p><p>Something he hadn’t felt since the creature had bitten him so long ago.</p><p>Something lurched within him, and suddenly his body was wracked with convulsions. His bones grew and expanded beneath his skin, his skin expanding with them like a rubber suit. Thick, dark claws replaced his nails, and his shoes were torn open by the razor-sharp blades. His clothes burst open, and in their place thick, white hair began to sprout. Just above his rear, a stump of flesh forced itself to extend. His face was stretched into a snout and his teeth into fangs.</p><p>The transformation was excruciating, and by the end his breath came in short, shallow gasps. He shakily got to his feet, hunched over on all fours like the wolf-thing before him (which had long since disappeared), threw back his head and let out a shrill, piercing howl.</p>
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